 At long last, we are back. I hope you all had fantastic all-star breaks able to rest a bit from the MLB DFF season and are ready to bounce back for a 14-game slate for tonight and it is a pretty fun one, but I will say there is a lot of potentially bad weather. That will impact a lot of things when it comes to tonight's slate, potentially our top pitcher, potentially our number two stack. So a lot of moving pieces here, we're gonna break down what that means, which spots are in danger, which spots are safe and which pitchers and players we like in those spots that are safe in case we get the worst case scenario when it comes to weather for tonight. Welcome on into the solo shop that's right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network and NumberFire.com. My name is Jim Saunas. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire, here to break down this 14-game main slate with lock set for 7.05 p.m. Eastern for today. Let's start things off by just listing off the bad weather spots for tonight and there are one, two, three, four, seven bullet points here to discuss. So apologies in advance. The first one is in Baltimore for the Marlins and Orioles. They may be able to play after a delay, decently optimistic about that one. In New York for the Mets and Dodgers, looks like a bit tougher to squeeze a game in there. In Atlanta for the White Sox and Braves, I think they'll be able to play. It looks pretty scattered, so maybe a delay, but potentially good to go. In Chicago for the Cubs and Red Sox, kind of dicey. I would not be shocked if they can't go, but if they do go, winds are out to center at 10 miles per hour, so upgrade bats that they do play for the Cubs and the Red Sox. In Kansas City for the Royals and Rays, there is a 66% chance of rain from start to finish, thunderstorms in there too, may clear a bit later, but does not look ideal for right now. In St. Louis for the Cardinals and Nationals, bit better than Kansas City, probably able to go, but we're checking back on later to there. And finally in Colorado for the Yankees and Rockies, it's about 36% chance to rain there, so should be good to go, but biggest weather spots, I would say, are New York for the Mets and Dodgers, Chicago for the Cubs and Red Sox, and Kansas City for the Royals and Rays. I would proceed with caution with players in all of those games. We'll dive into who stands out after potentially wiping out those games here in just one second, but first a reminder to make sure you're subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy Podcast, see wherever you get your podcast, if you like what you hear, leave us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify, also do not forget, the solo shot does go up each weekday on the Fandall YouTube page and on Fandall TV Plus, on your Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, or Roku as well. 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Gambling problem, call 1-800-Gambler or visit fandall.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia. Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXT-STEP to 533-42 in Arizona. 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. 1-800-9 with it in Indiana. Visit mdgamblinghealth.org in Maryland. Visit 1-800-gambler.ed in West Virginia. Call 1-800-522-4700 in Wyoming. Hope is here, visit gamblinghelp.ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts. Or call 1-877-HOPENWY or text OPENWY in New York. Pitching preview for this Friday, main slate out of the all-star break at Warner Rodriguez comes in with the highest salary on a fandallous salary is $10,000, followed by Tyler Glassnow in that reigning Kansas City. He's 10 flat, followed by Luis Castillo facing Rodriguez at 97. Corbin Burns checks in at 96 with Michael Kopeck at 96 as well. Charlie Morton 95, JP France 94 facing the Angels. Carlos Rodin at Coors Field 93. We got Justin Verlander 92 with John Gray, Aaron Savalli, Julio Arias, Dean Kramer, Brian Bayo, Kyle Hendricks, Sandiel Contra and Graham Ashcraft as the others at $8,000 or higher. I would note that Shohei Otani is listed as a hitter for a fandall so you cannot use him as a pitcher. Keep that in mind. If you wanna use Otani as a hitter, you definitely can. Not a bad spot for him against JP France but just note that despite the fact he is starting you cannot use him as a pitcher on fandall for tonight. I would rank Glassnow first if weather were to permit. I think that his match with Kansas City is worthy of that. So Glassnow is one as our pitcher for today but because the weather in Kansas City looks pretty dicey especially for a pitcher, I'm gonna skip over him and we'll talk about him in Things to Watch. My top pitcher with non-weather concerns is Luis Castillo. He is at home facing the Tigers and he has had some blips recently for sure but I still think he has to be high on our list with all things considered. The matchup for Castillo is a good one. The Tigers have an 89, a WRC plus against Reides with a 135 ISO and a 24% strikeout rate. Those numbers help jack up both the floor and the ceiling for opposing pitchers. Castillo's final two starts before the break were just okay. He had no walks, just foreign runs which is fine but also just nine strikeouts and we want some strikeouts obviously on fandall. But it's important to know which teams he faced in that time. Castillo went up against the Astros and the Reis and despite that he's still managed to get through those games decently unscathed and now he gets a much tougher or softer spot out of the break. Castillo up to 10 starts since his velocity stabilized. He has a 26% strikeout rate in that time. He's letting up a bit too much hard contact but the matchup does help in that regard. So Castillo is not perfect but his matchup is very nice. He is at home, he has no weather concerns with the roof there. So that's good enough for me. I'm gonna rank Luis Castillo as the top guy outside of weather situations. My number two stud again, if we cross off glass now due to weather is Charlie Morton. So Morton is also in potentially bad weather in Atlanta but I feel better about that game playing than I do about the Kansas City one. So again, it's glass now one, Castillo two. Morton is three among the studs specifically. Morton at home facing the White Sox. They're still trying to find their footing offensively. They have a 91 WRC plus against righties with a 35% fly ball rate. They're not drawn any walks hardly and they're also having pretty short plate appearances as a result despite an average strikeout rate. And what that does is it allows pitchers to go deeper in games because they're not wasting pitches and it doesn't reduce their strikeout rate because again, the White Sox are about average in that regard. Morton could use that because pitch efficiency has not been his strength so far this year. He's gotten better overall after a pretty rough start to the year. Cutback on his sinker usage is 11 starts ago and in that time, he has a 29% strikeout rate. He hasn't gone super deep in games but that's largely due to the issues with pitch efficiency. So I think that he should be more efficient here. That should help quite a bit and that juices Morton's strikeout projection up to 7.3. That's plenty enough for me to check him out here for a salary of $9,500. So Charlie Morton to me, a quality number three option if we get glass now and quality number two option if glass now is not available. Our top value guy tonight is a guy with a very low salary and it's just $7,000. That's Ken Tamayeta and I understand why the salary is so low but the concerns are not enough to push me off of him when the salary is as low as it is. Let's begin things at the downsides on Mayeda because they're legitimate. He's yet to exceed 87 pitches in any game so far this year across three stars since coming off the IL. And the twins tend to be pretty conservative when it comes to pitch counts. Mayeda had a bunch of injuries. So if I'm looking at expectations for Mayeda in the second half I would not expect that pitch count to go way up just because of the injuries and the staff. But we did still see Mayeda go seven innings last time out and he racked up nine strikeouts in that game. He also had eight in another as well. The velocity for Mayeda has been much better since he came back and he's converting that Velo into strikeouts. Match appears very good too facing the A's in Oakland easily the coldest temperature on the slate that's good for pitching. The A's have a 94 WRC plus against righties with a 25% strikeout rate. So I understand why Mayeda's salary is low and I have his pitch count low in my projections but he still pops in terms of strikeout projections due to the matchup due to how good he's been since coming back and I feel like we can feel good about Mayeda especially with his salary at just $7,000. If we are able to stack the raise we're probably gonna wanna say some salary somewhere and to me, Kent and Mayeda is the obvious route for doing so. So among the values, Kent and Mayeda is my favorite guy and of all pitchers considering salary Mayeda definitely worthy of being in your player pools for tonight. So again, top starter, Luis Castillo, top starter of weather allows Tyler Glass now, top value Kent and Mayeda. We got a lot of tops for today but Mayeda, I feel good about putting him. As a top value, we'll talk about another value play in things to watch just in case you're a bit more skittish about Mayeda due to his pitch count. Let's talk about stacks first though and part of the reason why I initially thought I wanted to check out a value play was because the Yankees are in Coorsfield but then you look at the salaries in the Yankees and I don't need to say to stack them. It's more so if I wanna stack the raise where the lower salaries very much come into play. You can stack the Yankees with Glass now you can stack the Yankees with Castillo and I very much would like to do so. The Yankees facing Austin Gomber in Coorsfield tonight and there are much better offense right now against the lefties than righties and Gomber is a lefty who is still struggling. I think we should load up on the Yankees here. Gomber has tried a lot of things try to write the shift this year. He's tried more sliders, fewer sliders and those things have not worked. I'd expect some kind of new tweak for him coming out of the break because he's, you know, he's tinkered he's had success in the past and I think that he wants to unlock that again and maybe he will. But so far at 18 starts Gomber has a 5.07 skill interactive ERA his expected ERA is 6.33 and that number is as high as it is due largely to hard contact. Gomber is letting up a 46% mark in that column and that's bad news in most situations but it's especially bad here. Even without judge on the active roster the Yankees have a 122 WRC plus against lefties and their ISO is 224. Both those numbers are the best on the slate again with the judge taken out of the equation and they get jacked up here at Coorsfield. So we would stack this one even if it were on a neutral in a neutral park putting it at Coorsfields makes it a true no-brainer. The Yankees even with their issues they've had are the top stack on the main slate for me. And again, don't need to break the bank to get there. You can stack them with Castillo pretty easily. Harrison Bader, John Carlos Stanton, Josh Donaldson have all obliterated lefties in a very small sample so far this year. Anthony Volpe probably lower in the order now but he's been good against lefties too hitting for power and will steal as well. And of course, Claver Torres has been dependable against lefties and puts the ball in the air a ton. So if I were finding nits to pick with the Yankees I can't really find any in popularity obviously is the main one, but like outside of that that's pretty much it. There are a really good high quality stack for today and MLB DFS. My second ranked stack would be where I'd spend the extra salary from my Aida would be the raise if not for weather but again, I can't feel great about talking up that game given the way the forecast looks. We'll talk about the raise and things to watch just in case things clear up in Kansas City but I would note the raise are number two mentally log that mentally in case we get the all clear on them. If we don't get to use the raise number two for me would be the Toronto Blue Jays they're facing Ryan Nelson. He gets the first star for the second half for Arizona and he's got some troubling bad at ball data going against Toronto tonight and the offense has been fine so far this year but I think a bit underrated potentially I do think they could look pretty good for tonight. Nelson, his most relevant sample is 13 starts with more change ups and fewer sliders which is a pretty large sample and when it's a larger sample it puts more stock in the bad at ball data and that bad at ball data over the span is pretty dicey. He's led up a 46% hard hit rate with a 43% fly ball rate which means a lot of dangerous contact and it's led to a 5.13 ERA. Nelson led up seven earned runs last time out. He's had four blow up games in this stretch. It's 13 starts so a pretty large sample but four is still not ideal. The Jays active roster hasn't been a standout against righties but their WRC plus is still 109. I think that could go up in the second half based on the guys they've got on this team and I wouldn't be shocked if that increase starts tonight. So I'm very on board with stacking the Jays here they're not just like a consolation stack with no raise. I think they are actually legitimately pretty good stack. So the Jays to me, solid number two behind the Yankees if we cannot stack the raise. As far as Ryan Nelson's rightie leftie splits they're not too concerning. I think you can kind of use your favorite guys here. One note I would make is that Arizona has been pretty good at limiting base stealers. So this year I've been trying to put a bigger emphasis on finding both speed and power and that's still largely true but I think you can put a slightly smaller emphasis on running here due to the ability the Diamondbacks have to limit opposing base runners. So would still factor it in but we can skew more towards power in this one matchup as a result of how good Arizona is at limiting opposing base runners. As far as the number three stack, assuming again we can't stack the raise I'd likely wind up on the Brewers but there is a pretty big fall off for me after the raise, the Yankees and the Jays down to the Brewers at number four. Brewers are facing Graham Ashcraft. Ashcraft, two really good starts for him going into the break and he's not quite convinced yet that he's fully back. Ashcraft spends some time on the shelf in June and right before he got hurt he started to go back to his sinker pretty heavily. Those two starts pre-injury did not go well. He went on the IL, came back, struggled in his first start as well but he's kept the same approach where he's been using that sinker more and it started to click in the two starts since then he's gone 13 and two-thirds innings let up just two earned runs and he got a lot of whiffs against the pod rates in one of those games but in that game still a lot of hard contact. Overall, since going back to his sinker more often Ashcraft is letting up a 48% hard hit rate. That doesn't matter as much with his ground ball rate hard contact not as damning there but it probably means the poor results he's had in this time aren't all fluky and we may wanna be skeptical of those two really good starts. So Ashcraft may be trending back up but I wanna see a bit more before I fully act on that. He's facing the Brewers here, 94 WRC plus against righties. So it's still pretty rough the offense but it has been improving a bit. So it's not a perfect spot for stacking that's why I prefer to go to the Yankees, Rays and Jays but the Brewers are the next place I would turn if forced to do so. Ashcraft does have some interesting reverse split tendencies where in his career which is a still a small sample but he has a 56% ground ball rate against lefties versus 48% against righties. That's great for the Brewers because we want Lillia Domes we want William Contreras the two righties there. I would still rank the lefty Christian Yelich higher than those two guys because he's gonna be the guy with some power and some speed but a Domes is a great number two. So if you're really good about Yelich really good about a Domes if you need a one off I think both those guys great out well because despite the Brewers offense being pretty bad they've shown upside themselves. So their exceptions to the I don't really wanna go here rule they're fine and would be willing to use them. Let's go now to things to watch if we get the all clearing hand sitting let's talk about Glassnow and the Rays. Glassnow he should be over the cramping he had in his most recent starts and I've gotten projected for 8.7 strikeouts. He's there both due to himself and due to the high strikeout matchup with the Royals. So if the weather clears up I would love Glassnow. I've been above Castillo the weather is fully, fully good and we can use him while stacking the Yankees and stacking the Jays as well. So to me Glassnow is a rock solid option if we get the all clear. Rays would be my second favorite stack behind the Yankees if we could use them they're facing Alec Marsh to climb the ladder pretty quickly from double A to the majors and he will get some strikeouts for sure but he will also walk some guys doesn't seem restrictive with the bad at ball data. So I think there is enough here to justify stacking the Rays. Again, I ranked the second behind the Yankees and then I ranked Glassnow first at pitcher if we were to get the all clear with those. Finally, if we're gonna pitch gonna for Kenseth Maeda which is a fair concern I would say Dean Kramer is the top alternative value play. He's at home against the Marlins. They have a 93 WRC plus against Rides. Kramer 25% strikeout rate in 10 starts more cutters. So that's why I'm on Kramer. The Marlins don't strike out much though and that's why I prefer Kenseth Maeda over Dean Kramer but Kramer fully in play if we get the all clear on weather in Baltimore as well. So I prefer Kenseth Maeda personally but if you don't wanna deal with the low pitch count I get it you can go to Kramer as your alternative. Let's finish up here at the Dinger calls for today mentioned before Glaber Torres facing lefty at Coorsfield. What else could you want? Good power numbers for Torres against lefties so far this year puts the ball in the air a ton. Gotta love that. So the boring one will be Glaber Torres. The fun one, this one is not based on data. Typically I try to do that. You know, like, oh, look at their hard hit rate their fly ball rate. This one if you look at the hard hit rate and fly ball rate heading to the all star break you're gonna close the tab. It's Dalton Varshow. He had a really rough first half in general but also end of his first half. But to me, I'm doing the all star break as a reset for Varshow or maybe he can get back to being the hitter that he was last year. That's my hope. I have faith in him as a batter and my hope is that a break can get him back locked in. So this is not based on data. This is based on me liking Dalton Varshow primarily. So we'll go with Glaber Torres and Dalton Varshow as our Dinger calls for this Friday night. But overall it is fantastic to have baseball back when they full slate. Wish it weren't riddled with weather but literally half the games impacted by weather but should still be a fun one either way. Do not forget to subscribe to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, leave us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Also check us out over on the Fandall YouTube page and on Fandall TV Plus. If you've got any questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the Fandall Podcast Network at Fandall Podcasts. Want to thank you all for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with your NLB DFS live tonight. Welcome back post all-star break. We'll talk to you once again on Monday for more NLB DFS. Have a fantastic weekend. This has been the solo shot right here on the Fandall Podcast Network.